One of the horror genre's "most widely read critics" (Rue Morgue # 68), "an accomplished film journalist" (Comic Buyer's Guide #1535), and the award-winning author of Horror Films of the 1980s (2007), The Rock and Roll Film Encyclopedia (2007) and Horror Films of the 1970s (2002), John Kenneth Muir, presents his blog on film, television and nostalgia, named one of the Top 100 Film Studies Blog on the Net.

Tuesday, October 06, 2015

Cult-Movie Review: Insidious: Chapter 3 (2015)

I
am as surprised to be writing these words as you may be to read them: Insidious:
Chapter 3 (2015) is a strong and worthwhile entry in the durable (but
aging…) horror franchise.

As
you may recall, the first Insidious (2011) cravenly cribbed
its entire story structure -- and much of its narrative detail -- from Tobe
Hooper’s Poltergeist (1982).

Lin
Shaye’s Elise Rainer -- a medium or sensitive -- was the equivalent of Dr. Lesh
and Tangina, for example. She even
arrived on site with two ghost hunters who doubled as comic relief and monster
fodder. And the child trapped in “The Further” (the astral plane”) in the 2011
film was much like Carol Anne on “the other side” in thePoltergeist franchise.

Yet
despite the obvious and multitudinous connections to Poltergeist, I also felt
that Insidious
featured many effective moments .In particular, I liked the Old Crone
monster and felt she was fearsome in appearance and presence.

My
feeling for Insidious 2 (2013) are much less fond. The film explained too
much, and wasn’t as scary as it should have been. The last act was a bit of a
mess, too.

But
Insidious:
Chapter 3 (2015) doesn’t go overboard explaining its central monster --
a creepy ghoul wearing a dirty hospital
gown and a breathing mask -- and simultaneously offers a remarkably meaty
and nuanced role for the great Lin Shaye. Shaye has very much become the
franchise’s most valuable player at this point, and is a delightful modern
equivalent to Dr. Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasence) in the original Halloween
films. She is a voice of authority and
exposition, but also a unique and individual personality.

At
this stage, I’d say you can’t make one of these movies without Liz Shaye. In
many ways, she is the heart and soul of this third film.

Now
before anyone claims I’ve gone soft, I won’t argue that Insidious: Chapter 3 is a
particularly deep or resonant horror movie, only that it is an entertaining and
occasionally touching one. The film features several technically-accomplished
jump scares, and offers a re-assuring, only occasionally schmaltzy view of the
after-life and its denizens.

While
I absolutely prefer my horror films with big doses of psychological friction (The
Babadook [2014], It Follows [2015] and carefuly imagery
that helps to convey the story in symbolic ways (Always Watching: A Marble Hornets
Story), I am not such a curmudgeon that I don’t appreciate a well-made
mainstream horror film.

And
that’s what this is. Nothing more, nothing less.

Rewardingly,
Insidious
3 doesn’t pander to the lowest common denominator, and actually
features an innovative twist or too. It
could have been a whole lot worse.

“When
you go there…things come back with you.”

Sometime
before the Lambert haunting, Elise (Shaye) mourns the suicide of her beloved
husband, and gives up her life as a medium; going so far as to lock up her
basement reading room.

But
one day, Elise is visited by a kind young woman, Quinn Brenner (Stefanie Scott)
who wants to have a reading done. Quinn’s mother has passed away from cancer,
and she is desperate to make contact with her.

Elise
warns Quinn that the living should not “call out” to the dead, because all of
the dead hear that call.

A
few days later, Quinn begins to see a strange specter -- a creepy man in a hospital gown -- and is struck by a car. She is released from the hospital, but both
her legs are broken, meaning she is now a virtual prisoner in her apartment,
which she shares with her father, Sean (Dermot Mulroney) and younger brother,
Alex (Tate Berney).

The
dark specter, however, has latched on to her, and wants to capture and keep her
soul in a dark corner of the Nether.

Elise
attempts to help Quinn, but keeps encountering her own personal demon, one who
assures the medium that she will be the cause of her eventual demise…

"Loving
someone is just delayed pain.”

The
creepiest and most effective moments in Insidious: Chapter 3 revolve around
Quinn, and her worsening physical condition.

The
car accident that injures Quinn is shockingly rendered (and brutal), but an
extended scene in her bedroom, in the dark, is absolutely the stuff of
nightmares. The demon is there with her
in the room and skitters under her bed in one scene. As the demon stalks her,
Quinn is veritably paralyzed and unable to escape. The monster throws her off the bed and --
taking its sweet time with her -- proceeds to close her in the bed-room, shut
down her computer, and pull the curtains.
We see the creature make these rounds, all while Quinn is powerless to
stop it. The scene builds and builds to
crescendo of terror.

Two
other jump scares are also brilliantly orchestrated, and achieve their desired
impact. One involves Elise walking
alone, into her reading room. She
descends into the room (which is in the basement of her house), and follows
goopy, mysterious footprints to a dark corner.
What happens next made me jump out of my chair.

Elise’s
flashlight catches the path of the footprints as they, oddly, go up a
wall. And then…

Well,
you get it.

The
other most notable scare involves a swooping camera which peers out of an open
window several stories up. The first
time the camera peers out the window, there is a body down at street level, in
the dark…apparently pulped on the sidewalk.

The
second time the camera peers out the window, the jump scare occurs, and it’s a
doozy as well.

There
is an algebraic equation to such jump scares, of course. It was explained to me, many years back, by Evil
Dead composer Joseph LoDuca. Specifically, the equation involves the use of
sound, and the lowering of the volume right before the “jump.” And that jump,
of course, is accompanied by sudden increased volume of sound. It’s not rocket science, I suppose, but the
fact remains: all of Insidious: Chapter 3’s jump scares
work flawlessly.

The
creative twist I mentioned above involves Quinn’s wounds. After having both her
legs broken, she injures her neck, and must wear a brace. So she becomes, over
the course of the film, a practical invalid, even as she is stalked by the ‘foul
creature’ from The Further. It is quite
compelling, and original the way the film makes Quinn progressively more
vulnerable at the same time that the creature becomes a more overt danger.

What
I enjoyed and admired most about Insidious: Chapter 3, however, is
Elise’s story. The first scene in the
film is but a nice, long conversation between Elise and Quinn, in Elise’s art
nouveau home. The scene takes its time,
is well-directed and strongly-performed, and feels no pressure whatsoever to
wow us or scare us. I thought for sure
the film would begin with an elaborate death scene.

But
that’s not the case.

Too
often, mainstream horror movies these days seem to think they must start at a
fever pitch, continue at a fever-pitch, and end at one as well. By contrast, this sequel opens with a
sedentary scene and an intimate conversation that establishes character. It eschews the fireworks. It reacquaints us with Elise, and sets up her
struggle in the film before launching into the terror.

Lin
Shaye, I should add, has grown in into the role of Elise Rainer in a most
remarkable fashion. This film gives audiences her best performance in the role.
Shaye makes great use of her physicality (a vulnerability?) here, and also has
learned how to turn and twist the dialogue to bring out more humor, and more pathos. The Loomis comparison is a valuable one, I
feel. Shaye has taken a one-off
supporting role and fashioned it into a full-blooded, multi-dimensional,
central one. In the earlier films, I
sometimes felt that some notes Shaye hit rang hollow, but not here. Shaye -- and Elise too -- have become nothing
less than genre treasures.

The
film’s central villain is a good one too, in part because the filmmakers don’t
feel it necessary to create a whole psychological background or motivation for
him. He’s a terrible, sick thing, and
one that creates fear in us because there
are things about him we don’t know.

Again,
I often write here about how we don’t fear those things we can quantify and
explain.No, we fear the things that
feel alien and unknown to us.Too much
back-story kills the fear.

The
horrible thing or specter in Insidious 3 remains mostly
mysterious. When we first see it -- merely
a silhouette waving to us in a dark auditorium -- we get a sense of its
complete and utter wrongness. Its terror
grows from there, and is never sacrificed by an orgy of explanation or
flashbacks.

There
are some aspects of this sequel (and franchise) that still rub me the wrong
way. In general, I dislike the treacly, sentimental, Touched by an Angel-type
stuff wherein a ghost from the other side shows up -- all glowing and ethereal --
to help at a crucial moment. I could
also do without the occasions when a dead loved one leaves behind a “sign” for
the living to see, so that the mourning character can soldier on in this mortal
coil with the knowledge that everything is okay.

For
me, horror simply doesn’t need to concern such re-assurances. There are other genres that do fine with that
concept.

But
I understand that, as a mainstream horror series, Insidious must apparently
scare its audience and then re-establish order and security before the end
credits. The great horror films don’t
feel it necessary to provide that kind of closure or peace (The
Texas Chainsaw Massacre [1973], Psycho [1960]), but…fine.

Long
story short: Insidious: Chapter 3, made me jump five times in 98 minutes,
and proved a good showcase for Lin Shaye’s talents.

And
let’s be brutally honest: how often do modern horror movies focus on a 71-year old woman as the lead character and primary mover of the action? This film should be lauded for not playing it
safe, and for making Elise Rainer the center of the action.

Loving
someone might be “delayed pain,” but Insidious: Chapter 3 is loveable
enough, with no real pain involved at all. Instead, you may feel satisfaction that you have watched an effective,
entertaining horror film.

Three
films into a popular franchise, that’s not a small or inconsiderable feat.

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About John

award-winning author of 27 books including Horror Films FAQ (2013), Horror Films of the 1990s (2011), Horror Films of the 1980s (2007), TV Year (2007), The Rock and Roll Film Encyclopedia (2007), Mercy in Her Eyes: The Films of Mira Nair (2006),, Best in Show: The Films of Christopher Guest and Company (2004), The Unseen Force: The Films of Sam Raimi (2004), An Askew View: The Films of Kevin Smith (2002), The Encyclopedia of Superheroes on Film & Television (2004), Exploring Space:1999 (1997), An Analytical Guide to TV's Battlestar Galactica (1998), Terror Television (2001), Space:1999 - The Forsaken (2003) and Horror Films of the 1970s (2002).

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